So much for blogging regularly!

Here we are Easter and not a post since Christmas. I was busy ok! What with I can't quite remember but I'm sure it involved a lot of busy type behaviour, probably some wine and doubtless a lot of gossip. I am, if nothing else, shallow. I discovered some years ago that "deep" involved reading far too many books, sitting through some tedious movies and drowning myself and everyone around me in self indulgent ranting ... and very little wine ... so I gave it up. Perhaps it was for Lent? Whatever, it took and "shallow" it is.

The Sunday papers are usually deep enough for me these days. No real news just magazines printed on newsprint. With strong coffee in hand and the day ahead of me what more do you need. Well some toasted crumpet would be nice. Toasted crumpet with my mother's strange topping of lashings of butter and salt & pepper. I have no idea where she got this strange concoction as she was not a woman given to eccentricity. The story of her aunt having her pudding BEFORE her main course was often told (and in tones of pure astonishment) and seemed to have scarred her psyche irrevocably, so how or when she decided to experiment with food in this way is a mystery. Mind you, now I think of it, I think it was her that introduced my brother to the joy of a teaspoon of sugar in a lettuce leaf ..... strange woman.

A shame really that I can't ask her about my current culinary dilemma. Gene has asked me to cook a "typical Kiwi dinner" when I visit in January and quite frankly I'm grateful he has given me this much warning. Obviously it gives me several months to learn to cook (damn John Key for taking away the Night School funding - now where am I meant to go??) but more importantly he's given me time to investigate this enormous question. What is a typical Kiwi meal?

Everyone I ask seems to stare blankly for a while, "um" and "ahh" for a bit longer and then helpfully suggest I make a pavlova. With kiwi fruit sliced on top. Now I'm sure that some would say that pavlova could be a meal in itself but I suspect they are the same people that have just gone off to see what a teaspoon of sugar in a lettuce leaf is like. Pavlova is a dessert and I must say a rather revolting one, and I wonder what it says about us as a nation that the best we can come up with is egg whites & sugar ... and slices of kiwi fruit on top.

Desmond suggested a boil up but I'm uncertain as to the availability of pork bones & puha in Tarpon Springs and no, I am not putting down a hangi. Far too many 'nakes to be out there digging holes. Martin suggested roast lamb which is a possibility if we win Lotto and I can spend most of the money on buying cuts to experiment on. I've never cooked a roast in my life so I suspect I will need to make several burnt offerings to the gods before I can master that one and at $48.99 per kilo for a lamb rack I think it may be a rather expensive hobby.

(Actually I lied. I did once cook a roast. I remember it was meat of some sort. Red meat not chicken. It was very chewy. My mother was polite and ate some but later in the day mentioned she may need new dentures soon.)

So what else? When we went around the table in the office saying what "kiwi" meal we had had the night before at home we came up with an assortment of curries, pasta dishes, sushi and Thai. Is that who we are? "Pacific Fusion" really exists and we are it? Or should that be Global Fusion"? Our diet is a glorious mixture of all the cultures who live here or is it that we just can't make up our minds?

Chew on that.